Flying non-stop from Los Angeles to New York City
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in thefastest possible straight line between Los Angeles, California andNew York, New York. Because of the curvature of the Earth, theshortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or"as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterativeVincenty formula. For a long distance, this appears as a curve on the map, and this is often the route that commercial airlines will take so it's a good estimate of the frequent flyer miles you'll accumulate as well.
Flight distance: 2,451 miles or 3944 km
Flight time: 4 hours, 47 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 338 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.1x of the flight distance.
Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/8th of the time it would take to drive.
This is a fairly long flight, so unless you have a Gulfstream G650 or your own Boeing or Airbus, you might be booking a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need toinclude how many minutes to get to your local airport, waitfor security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the otherairport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takesinto account all these factors to get a more accurate estimateof your actual flight time.
Los Angeles to New York City road trip
Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Los Angeles to New York City, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to New York City, and you need to stop along the way to rest. Plus if it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what Trippy is perfect for,helping you figure out travel plans in detail.
Based on the length of this trip, we think you could spread out this fun road trip over a number of days.
Road trip: 5 days of driving
With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimateyour total travel time for this trip.
Travel time: 45 hours on the road with 4 overnights
Itinerary
Start in Los Angeles.
Drive for about 4 hours, then stop in Las Vegas and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 6.5 hours, then stop in Moab and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 5.5 hours, then stop in Denver and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 5 hours, then stop at Great Platte River Road Archway and stay for about 1 hour.Next, drive for another 5.5 hours then stop in Des Moines. Stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 9 hours, then stop in Toledo (Ohio) and stay overnight.
Finally, drive for about 9.5 hours and arrive in New York City.
To see all the details on this itinerary, includingrecommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do alongthe way, check out the full road trip planner:
Los Angeles to New York City airports and flights
In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a privateplane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city.But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline(whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really needto account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport,waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.
To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we'veput together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventuallyyou'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airportsand flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected togive you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.
Departure airport: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Arrival airport: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to andfrom the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.
Getting to the airport: 36 minutes
Getting to your destination: 38 minutes
Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from LAX to JFK on Alaska Airlines and figure out how long it would take to fly includingtake-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.
Commercial flight time: 5 hours, 14 minutes
So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time fromLos Angeles to New York City including time spent getting to/fromthe airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSAsecurity lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.
Total travel time: 8 hours
To see the details on this flight plan, includingrecommended airports, airline, and route, check outthe flight planner:
Plan a trip to New York City
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to New York, New York. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in New York City, or find out how many days in New York City to visit. Trippy has an entire Q&A community where you can post questions and get answers from expert travelers or locals who know the area. For instance, you might be interested in the answers to this question: . If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out The Standard New York. A great place to eat might be Katz's Delicatessen. Trippy members can suggest things to do in New York City like Central Park. Check out some of the questions people have asked about New York City like Is it a good idea to visit NYC in December?. Click the button below to explore New York City in detail.
How far is it the other way?
The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line (or driving the same roads back and forth). But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differencesso go ahead and check the reverse directions to get thedistance from New York City to Los Angeles, or go to the main pageto calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know Los Angeles, don't forget to help othertravelers and answer some questions about Los Angeles!
